To its detractors, that means the sport is slow, it has too many games, the games are too long and that the season is too long.

The players aren't the same type of athletes that seem to populate football and soccer fields, basketball courts or ice hockey rinks.

Plus, aren't baseball players all guys who are pumped up on performance enhancing drugs to compensate for their lack of natural ability?

There's an element of truth to all of those things.

There are also some unique things about the sport of baseball that are positives.

It is often said that patience is a virtue. It is also something sorely lacking in most major sports.

In the NFL, there are no guaranteed contracts. A player whose performance drops off is cut. In the NBA, the contracts are guaranteed. But with only five starting positions on a team, a player's minutes are far from assured.

Baseball is different. All those games, all those at-bats and innings, they all combine to create a need for patience.

Teams can't afford to make decisions based on the last game, the last week's worth of games or even a full season of games.

The Boston Red Sox invested $82.5 million over five years in John Lackey.

Lackey spent the first two seasons performing about as poorly as anyone could have possibly expected. Not until his second terrible season had concluded was it discovered that a contributing factor into his lack of effectiveness was an elbow injury that would require Tommy John surgery.

A combination of factors such as his contract, what he had done previously and a lack of alternative options forced the Red Sox to remain patient with John Lackey through what were essentially three wasted years of a five-year contract.

Unfortunate?

If you're going to evaluate a contract only on value, then there's no way for John Lackey to ever actually earn what his current contract pays him.

None of that matters right now.

Lackey can't go back in time and undo his injury or poor performance any more than the Red Sox brass can undo the offering and signing of the contract.

So here we are, late June of 2013, and John Lackey is pitching so well that baseball observers are actually writing columns that lump Lackey with Pedro Martinez.

Even the most optimistic of Red Sox fans probably wouldn't have considered Lackey and Pedro ever being favorably compared.

His overall numbers aren't even close to the best of what Pedro produced. But, his start on Wednesday afternoon against the Colorado Rockies wasn't all that far from Pedro.

It was only one start, and, as good as it was, it would be foolish to depend on Lackey to be that good every five days.

What is more important is that the Red Sox were patient.

It was patience that allowed Dustin Pedroia to transform himself from struggling rookie second baseman to American League Rookie of the Year back in 2007.

It was patience that allowed the Red Sox to weather a few very un-Big-Papi-like seasons from David Ortiz.

There are numerous players on the Red Sox roster who have endured struggles in their big league careers.

Clay Buchholz and Jacoby Ellsbury both had to deal with injury-plagued seasons. The Red Sox are currently hopeful that Buchholz isn't going through yet another one this year.

It is all part of baseball and the culture that surrounds it.

In both the NBA and NFL, players routinely leap from the high school ranks to the top pro levels within just a few years.

In baseball, we hear about those that can mimic those meteoric rises. The Mike Trouts, Bryce Harpers and Manny Machados all grab headlines and accolades in large part because their accomplishments have taken place at such young ages.

It doesn't happen like that for most major league baseball players.

Even the very best of the current Red Sox had to endure years of minor league baseball and some not-so-amazing years in the majors as well.

David Ortiz was famously released by the Minnesota Twins at the age of 26. His star didn't begin to shine brightly until he was in his late 20s.

Even John Lackey's situation, which is far different from David Ortiz's, is not entirely unique in baseball.

Barry Zito was a Cy Young award winner at the age of 24. He was a star pitcher for the Oakland A's and, when he was ostensibly in his prime at the age of 28, he signed a seven-year contract worth $126 million to move across the bay and play for the San Francisco Giants.

Zito was bad, as bad if not worse than Lackey. He had arrived in San Francisco with a better resume than Lackey and received a more lucrative contract. He responded by posting career worst win-loss records and ERAs.

When the Giants advanced to the World Series in 2010, Zito was left off the roster.

There are many paths to success in baseball. The Red Sox and the Giants would never have stuck with either Lackey or Zito if not for their cumbersome contracts. Yet, the team's willingness to continue to work with their players, give them opportunities to succeed and not completely abandon any hope of future success has also paid off.